


Alone

by LadyofShalott



Series: Circus 'verse [1]
Category: Leverage
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:22:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofShalott/pseuds/LadyofShalott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate knows it's his fault</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> These characters belong to the Leverage creators. I'm just borrowing them. No copyright infringement is intended.

Nate supposes it's his own fault that the team fell apart. He's always known that Sophie would leave, eventually. She isn't the sort of woman who deals well with routine, and as much as he hates to admit it, there at the end he could have run cons in his sleep. He was so drunk he couldn't remember half of them. Parker and Hardison have their whole lives ahead of them, and Nate doesn't begrudge them the strange -- if not romance, symbiosis -- that they've found. He hopes they believed him when he told them it was okay that they left.

On the kitchen counter, lying on top of the pile of the mail that Nate can't be bothered to look at, is a postcard from Parker. From Monaco. He doesn't even want to think about what she might be stealing there. Eliot had voiced a similar opinion when it arrived two days prior, and then had stacked Nate's mail neatly on the counter for him to deal with when he felt so inclined.

Eliot didn't put the note on top of the mail, because he knew Nate would never find it there. He woke up to a simple _I'm sorry_ taped to the glass door of the liquor cabinet. Most of Eliot's personal things were gone when Nate woke up -- clothing, toiletries, books that he couldn't live without. Surprisingly, his fancy knives are still in the block on the kitchen counter. Nate doesn't cook enough to have ever used them, so he's not entirely sure why Eliot left those behind, and it's slightly worrying.  
Nate is man enough to admit that Eliot's departure hurt the most. As bitter as it is, he can admit that he drove him away. Eliot was a good man and deserved more out of life than babysitting a drunk.

Nate realizes a lot of things. Eliot was his rock...his North Star, his anchor, his compass, and without him, Nate is lost, drowning in a 90-proof ocean with nothing to keep him afloat. It is in that moment that he realizes why Eliot had to leave, and the floodgates open.

Half an hour later, he is on the floor catching his breath, the front of his shirt damp from tears. He is more lucid than he has been in months. He stands and walks to the cabinet and begins pulling bottles out. Each of them is emptied down the sink in turn, their empty glass corpses nearly filling the trash can. He pours himself one final shot from the last bottle. The rest goes down the sink. 

He downs the shot -- liquid courage -- and walks into the too-empty bedroom, where he packs a bag. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and goes to stand in front of it. For the first time in months, he is able to meet his own eyes.  
"My name is Nathan Ford, and I am an alcoholic," he says softly to himself and the empty room. It is a phrase he will repeat every day in the rehabilitation facility that he is about to check himself into, and will continue to say it at every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting he attends after that -- minus the last name, of course.

Tucked into the corner of the mirror is a photograph of Eliot, head thrown back and laughing in the sunlight. He's pretty sure that's the last time he saw Eliot truly happy. He places it in his suitcase with a reverence he wishes he'd shown Eliot when he was home and walks back into the living room. 

He uncaps a pen and writes _I'm sorry too_ at the bottom of Eliot's note.

Before he closes the door behind him, he looks around the apartment one last time. It isn't home any more -- not without Eliot -- but before he can go find Eliot, he has to find himself again.


End file.
